Title: Hollow
Rating: K
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters used but I wish I did, because I would be rich. So anyways these characters are not mine and I claim no legal ownership all rights a reserved for the brilliant lady J.K. Rowling and her publishing company.
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He stood there feeling hollow.
Green eyes blurry as he watched the crafted wooden box. Trying vainly to keep the tears from escaping but loosing the battle and only allowing them to slip down pale flushed cheeks unnoticed.
Vaguely aware of what the minister was saying, but knowing it was important.
He was slightly aware of children shrieking in the background, and felt a flare of anger that they couldn't shut up and their parents do something before he did something that he knew he would later regret.
His nails bit into the palms of his hands as the grief returned vengeful at being forgotten even for those few brief moments.
He wished it was all a dream, hopelessly yearning that it was someone else in his place, that the person inside the box was some barely known relative and that he was further back in the crowed of people. Standing silently wishing that he was somewhere else then this depressing place.
But knowing it was a useless gesture as he thought of the past year and a half.
The restless night of rubbing his mothers back as she threw up what little food she could keep down. Being meticulously careful as he gave her medacine through her port, then later through the pick line in her arm. Keeping everything steral and clean around his mother so she wouldn't get sick and have to spend another restless week in the hospital.
The scare of her getting an infection in both her chest ports and having to help her suffer through the cold shakes, holding her close and noticing how small his mother had gotten, how weak and fragile his mother had become.
Desperately praying to god that he would heal her, make her stronger and seeing every day that she was growing weaker.
Watching from the doorway as she slept restlessly because she was in pain, and feeling powerless to take that pain away, knowing that he could seriously harm her with a drug overdose on pain medication if he gave it to her too soon, but wanting to get her out of pain so she could at least have one nights peaceful rest.
He had stopped his own life to take care of her. Stopped seven credits from gaining his high school diploma, so he could take her to the cancer clinic every week and sit with her as she did chemotherapy. Took her to see the specalist, or waited in the surgery lobby.
He put his whole life on hold to help his father take care of his mother, learned along side his father to help take care of her because they didn't want to put her in a nursing center, they learned everything they could from the weekly visiting nurse asking endless questions on how to better their care for her.
He remembered those moments when he saw his old mother shining through those weary eyes. When she had her 'good days' how he could talk to her and she would laugh and tell him stories or reminisce on his childhood.
He watched his father try so hard to help heal the women he loved. Looking in aw as his father took those seventy two hour days in making sure his wife was comfortable, that she had everything she needed or ever wanted. Cleaning house and cooking for him and his two little sisters.
He remembered getting a job and making sure what little he made went towards the house hold to help in the little ways he could.
He kept hope alive that she would pull through this, that she would grow to be one of those little old ladies that he confounded at the grocery store with his cousin when they talked about the relativity of thumbs, or why Japanese anime was the way it was.
He wanted her to be one of those little old ladies that he saw walking with their husbands on the sidewalk.
But hope didn't work in this story.
Hope and faith didn't save this life.
His world crumbled.
His goal vanished.
His leading light was in that cold box being lowered to the ground.
The world around him was a blur. Muffled voices, the vague sensation of an arm around his shoulder, a small hand in his own, a wet spot forming near his stomach as small hands gripped his waist.
He had no words to say, he had nothing to feel, the only thing in his sight was that wood box. And it was being lowered into the ground. On that cold July day, he laid his mother to rest.
His name was Harry James Potter. Newly turned nineteen and already in his eighties.
He no longer had a mother.
He stood there feeling hollow.